


a chronology of firsts

by frederickdesvoeux (doomdxys)



Series: two corners away [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: (Kind of) Vague Sex, Alternate Universe, Blow Jobs, First Kiss, First Meeting, First Time, Graham Lives AU, Hand Jobs, M/M, Minor Dysphoria Mentions, Trans Character, Trans Graham, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29338875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomdxys/pseuds/frederickdesvoeux
Summary: “Harry Goodsir, I’m the assistant surgeon.”It’s pretty certain to Graham, even within that half-minute, that he wouldn’t mind having Goodsir along, something he tells him instantly and Goodsir blushes slightly as he averts his eyes again.(Graham and Harry, through five firsts they experience.)(A companion piece of developments in small spaces, but can be read as a standalone.)
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir/Graham Gore
Series: two corners away [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2154519
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17
Collections: The Terror Bingo, The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	a chronology of firsts

**Author's Note:**

> For the Terror Bingo: Celebratory Kiss. & For the Rare Pair Week: stolen moments & frozen in. 
> 
> This is a companion piece to [_developments in small spaces_](https://href.li/?https://archiveofourown.org/works/21361855) but can be read as a standalone! The other fic was a Graham Lives AU centered around Graham healing up from the Tuunbaq's attack with some pining, Harry finding out Graham is trans and a first kiss! 
> 
> Many thanks to [kat @annecoulmanross](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annecoulmanross) for beta'ing this rapidly!! It needed it.

**i. Meeting**

The first time they meet is back in Greenhithe, Graham running across the docks and eventually Erebus’ deck to escape from the rain, damning the dampdamned many times already in his mind as it soaks his coat. The inside of the ship is, almost thankfully, dry. Someone has lit a lamp already, abandoned several feet away from him. It’s burning, still, so it can’t be a leftover from the people that were onboard yesterday. 

“Hello?” 

He takes off his hat and stamps his feet at the bottom of the stairs, peering around the badly lit lower deck under the vanishing assumption that he would be the first, and therefore alone, on the ship that day. No one else is meant to be aboard yet, Graham merely having come over because Mister Gregory wants to speak with him about the engine. 

Something rustles in the distance—books, maybe, something involving paper. He shoves his hands in his coat pockets, hat safely tucked under his arm, and sets off towards the noise. 

“Hello? It’s Lieutenant Gore!”

The creaking of the wood under his feet is accompanied by creaking further away. The door to the sickbay slides open and a man appears, half his face covered by a scarf and the other half obscured by the shadows his curls cast over it. He appears startled by Graham’s appearance and addresses the floor, rather than to Graham.

“Harry Goodsir.” 

Several books are strewn across a table in the sickbay, all medical as far as Graham can read their titles. He lets his eyes wander across the man— _ Goodsir,  _ repeats to himself—as they walk towards each other, meeting awkwardly next to several boxes no one had moved out of the way. He sticks out a hand as a greeting. “Can I ask what you’re doing aboard, Mister Goodsir?”

“I’m the assistant surgeon,” he explains like it’s a good reason to be aboard several weeks early and takes Graham’s hand gingerly. A weak handshake, though Graham pays it little mind as the man finally looks up at him, dark eyes staring from under badly combed curls. It’s pretty certain to Graham, even within that half-minute, that he wouldn’t mind having Goodsir along, something he tells him instantly and Goodsir blushes slightly as he averts his eyes again.

* * *

**ii. Voyage (for Harry D. S. Goodsir)**

Goodsir is on deck as they swap the Thames for the North Sea, eyeing the water with a certain curiosity. It’s where Graham finds him, leaning over the taffrail to watch the waves slosh against the wood. Maybe he’s already spotted creatures, Graham thinks, hands stuffed in his pockets, as he walks over, reminded of the conversation they’d had as Goodsir carefully moved equipment into the sickbay.

“Mister Goodsir,” he exclaims, joining him with slightly more trust in his hat staying put than Goodsir, who holds his hat in place like it can blow away at any moment. 

The man startles, looking up at Graham with a sudden worry in his eyes. “Am I in the way, sir?” His eyes are already skittering across parts of the deck he can see without turning around. 

“Not at all.” Graham can’t help but smile as Goodsir visibly deflates. Goodsir is, as he’s heard from other officers and a few seamen he’s spoken to, far from the only new addition to the world of the navy, but with an assignment that seems more likely to kickstart later on in the journey and another that has him moving around between mostly higher officers, he seems more out of his depth than most new crew members. God knows Graham wouldn’t want to work with Doctor Stanley, no matter how much Fitzjames seems to like him.

“First voyage then?”

Goodsir nods, already his head back over the taffrail. At least he’s not throwing up, Graham thinks, smiling to himself about the terrible realisation. He joins Harry in glancing at the water but nothing seems different from any other time he’s seen this particular part of the North Sea. Instead he settles on leaning his arms on the rail, squinting at several ships in the distance. 

“I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine, Mister Goodsir,” he says, but Goodsir isn’t really listening anymore. 

* * *

**iii. Drawing**

Harry, as Graham starts calling him a couple of weeks into the voyage, does fit in just fine. Sometimes unsteady on his feet, yet he easily senses what parts of the deck he isn’t wanted on and at what hours of the day. When able to wander around without much issue, he tells whoever will listen about the creatures they pass—most of them already known to the crew, but occasionally not entirely labelled. 

Though it’s far from his job, Graham keeps a discreet eye on the specimen collecting being done for Harry, more than occasionally telling people to be careful with whatever animal they’re carrying downstairs or offering small suggestions during long talks with Harry, where Graham does little more than peer into a bucket and nod. 

He suggests that he could help drawing them one of those nights. They’re holed up in the wardroom, various buckets and books strewn across the table. Graham is sitting at one end, some book he thinks himself too undereducated for sitting open in front of him. He’s stopped reading several minutes ago, fiddling with the corner of the page as he watches Harry frown into a bucket of crabs. 

“Sorry?” Harry says several long seconds after the suggestion, clearly preoccupied and not looking up from his bucket.

“I could help draw all this.”

Harry looks up now, the way he hangs over the bucket whilst holding a small stick instantly making Graham smile. 

“What?” 

“Did you stick a jellyfish in your ear, Mister Goodsir?” He can’t help but laugh at Harry’s blushing right after. It’s become something he likes trying, making Harry blush, just because the man only seems to blush when good-humouredly teased. It’s a sign that Harry isn’t actually annoyed with the person ribbing him slightly. 

“No, no of course not.” He pauses to look back in the bucket, something sloshing around loud enough for Graham to get up and join him. “I didn’t know you could draw, sir.” 

Harry lets him draw, not that he really could’ve stopped Graham, and manages to cement himself into Graham’s heart entirely. Occasionally, he offers slight corrections, one time going as far as turning his head ninety degrees and commenting on the leg length of a crab. Mostly he gives awkward compliments and asks if he can keep them, perhaps even to publish them, and it makes it Graham’s time to blush. 

* * *

**iv. Kiss (a)**

Carnival goes badly—horrendously so, the flames acting as the worst of light sources as he scours the survivors for Harry. The thick smoke is an ever-present blindfold he can’t take off, causing him to squint and eliminate people on the worst of characteristics like their height or being dressed up more than Harry would be. 

“Harry?” he whispers but the man he turns around is someone he barely recognises—a Terror recently moved over. He asks something but Graham doesn’t hear him, his hands already on another man as he wrestles through the huddled-together bodies. 

The ice behind the group greets him with a cold chill—literally and figuratively, the warmth they created leaving his body almost instantly as panic swells. There’s no one, just a reminder of where they are, unforgiving and harsh. 

“Harry—” the call turns into a coughing fit, smoke filling his lungs slowly.  _ Better be alive to save me from dying still,  _ he thinks morbidly as he leans onto his knees to catch his breath, trying to ignore the strain he’s putting on his barely formed scars as he heaves heavily.  _ Goddamn creature.  _

Seconds seem to take hours as he stares at the backs of the men in front of him—all the hope and optimism slowly leaving him, but Harry finds him. Out of breath and his curls covered in ash, but Harry finds him and Graham can’t help but kiss him in that moment. He’s too desperate, too unsure if it’s all a hallucination. He grabs Harry’s neck with both hands, bringing him closer and surely bruising the skin. 

It’s far from perfect and nothing Graham had ever envisioned it to be. It tastes of ash, it feels like ash, and Graham hates it. 

**iv. Kiss (b)**

Their actual first kiss—or the one Graham likes to bring up as their first anyway, unwilling to be reminded of carnival—is barely five hours later. Harry sneaks into Graham’s cabin, exhausted and unwashed. His hair smells of smoke and flakes of ash fall off his skin with every move he makes. He doesn’t speak as he strips and slips under the covers with Graham, who instantly wraps his arms around the other man, scared to let go again. 

It’s a result of their proximity, Harry trying to crawl into Graham’s skin, fingers digging weakly into his chest. Their noses bump and it’s nothing but right to Graham when he slides a finger under Harry’s chin and leans in. 

Harry still tastes of ash and his lips are chapped from the cold they were forced into, but it feels proper this time. No desperation in the way Graham slowly moves his hand to tangle his fingers in Harry’s curls, in the way Harry’s hands relax upon Graham’s chest. They’re fine and it’s not perfect but it fits somewhat into the dreams Graham has had about it. 

It’s good and gentle and Graham laughs softly as Harry ducks his head again, the frost-reddened skin on his cheeks doing little to hide the blush creeping up his neck. Graham can barely see it’s there, the light from the corridor too low to make out more than basic features, but he knows it is. 

“Goodnight, Harry,” he whispers, placing a small kiss in his curls after Harry tucks his head under Graham’s chin. 

* * *

**v. Time**

Kissing Harry becomes a pleasure over the last few weeks they have left aboard Erebus—how Graham wishes later on that he’d kissed him earlier. Harry is more than glad to abandon his, now very overcrowded, sleeping place for Graham’s cabin. If anyone notices—and with crew for two ships in one place, Graham wouldn’t really be surprised—they don’t care enough to mention it. 

So Harry comes to him, almost every night—and Graham loathes the days when Harry is so occupied with work that he straight up sleeps in the sickbay—and kisses him. Gently at first, like Graham is still a porcelain doll because of the Tuunbaq’s attack; lazily later, the sheer exhaustion creeping into their bones. 

They let their hands wander on the nights they get to sleep early. Harry’s still more an anatomist than a lover. His fingers are cold and delicate, slowly trying to map out every part of Graham’s body. He stops at Graham’s hand one night, thumb slowly running over a scar.

“What did you even do?” His lips replace his thumb as Graham tells the story. He has to drag Harry back up, kissing him to make sure his laughter doesn’t wake everyone up. 

(“Tell me about the cockatoo,” Harry will say later, bringing water to Graham’s scurvy-ridden lips.)

Harry’s lips replace his fingers a lot more after that, mapping every freckle and every mole. He remarks on a cluster of them settled on Graham’s hipbone, mentioning something about an organism he had seen once in the microscope and Graham can’t decide whether to take it as a compliment. 

“Do you mean I wriggle under your gaze? Studying me and prodding at me so that I am at your command?” Graham’s eyes sparkle and he runs his fingers across Harry’s exposed ribs, sending the man twisting above him. 

Harry blushes, deep red, like the strawberries he says he misses so much. Graham kisses him; there is no answer to the question, there doesn’t need to be as Harry continues his kisses downward. 

“Graham—” Harry stops, his fingers and lips hovering near the hem of Graham’s trousers, already pushed down plenty over the course of the night, the buttons undone entirely. 

Graham settles his hands in Harry’s curls, fingertips across his skull. He nods slowly, making sure to keep eye contact with Harry as the man slowly lowers his trousers to midway his thighs. It’s nothing Harry hasn’t seen at that point, but the air still feels different as Harry resettles himself between Graham’s legs. 

Graham lets one his hands fall to Harry’s cheek, then his chin, his thumb running across Harry’s bottom lip. He can almost grab Harry’s worries out of the air, that palpable they are, even mixed with excitement. “Don’t worry,” he whispers, trying to even out his own breathing as the air between them thickens with desire. “I can—I will guide you when you go too far.”

Harry nods and kisses Graham’s inner thigh before he slots his mouth over Graham’s cock, just the feeling of Harry’s breathing and the hotness of his mouth sending a shiver through Graham. His fingers slacken in Harry’s hair, the other hand coming to rest on his stomach in a feeble attempt at stabilising his breathing as Harry licks across his length experimentally, dark eyes looking up to gauge Graham’s reaction. 

Harry doesn’t really need guidance. Graham closes his eyes and tips his head back against the pillows, his fingertips stroking softly through Harry’s curls as he lets the man figure out how things work—not that Graham thinks there’s all that much figuring out to do; Harry reads Graham’s little moans and ragged breathing just fine. His hips tilt and twist into Harry’s touch, when Harry does something that Graham desperately wants him to do again. 

“ _ Harry _ — _ ” _ he chokes, the name more a grunt than an actual word, feeling his climax near him. 

And he can’t help but laugh rather breathlessly when Harry looks up, eyes worried, like he’s scared he’s crossed a border or done something wrong. His fingers dig a little into Harry’s skull as he gently pushes Harry’s head down again. “Don’t stop, please— _ please _ —” 

He laughs again at Harry’s increasingly puzzled look, the entire picture of a confused Harry between his naked thighs too much for his desirous brain to handle. “I was about to finish,” he whispers, certain he could almost finish at the look of Harry's face alone, Harry's mouth falling open in a small ‘o’ before he returns to what he was doing, eyeing Graham's expression with big eyes again.

It doesn’t take long before Graham is back where he was before their little interruption, his fingers grasping at Harry’s hair, breathing heavy. He digs his heels into the mattress; his legs shuffle around restlessly as he tries to somehow increase the stimulation on his cock. 

“God— _ fuck. Harry—Christ. _ ” He comes with a low groan, pushing his hips up against Harry, who keeps going through Graham’s shuddering orgasm. 

He pulls Harry up after, crashing their lips together in a breathless kiss. His fingers fumble instantly with Harry’s half-opened trousers, partially trying to open more buttons, partially attempting to just pull them down. 

Harry doesn’t take long, Graham’s hand wrapped loosely around his length, barely stroking him as he comes over Graham’s stomach, his face buried in Graham’s neck to muffle the moans and high-pitched noises that occasionally resemble Graham’s name. 

“Sorry,” he whispers afterwards, slightly embarrassed and his face still red. 

Graham wipes his down rapidly with his previously discarded shirt. “No need,” he smiles, tossing it on the floor and wrapping his arms around Harry. He presses small kisses along the man’s jawline, along the outline of his beard; sucks on the man’s bottom lip. 

“If I didn’t have an early watch I’d happily keep going,” he says after several minutes, only interrupted by the sound of their kisses. Harry merely makes a whining noise as Graham shifts his thigh against his still-sensitive member. 


End file.
